


The Vine Wars

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Humor, Nat and Thor doing things, Thor Is a Good Bro, Tony doesn't know what he's getting into, vine wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 07:10:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4129296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all started because Tony suggested that Bucky and Steve were too old to know how to make vines people would watch. In hindsight that probably wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had considering it led to the Avengers teaming up to ruin his life. </p><p>Steve and Bucky admittedly had no fucking clue what a vine was when they told Tony to stuff it. However once they looked them up and watched two hours’ worth of hilarious six second clips they were confident they could kick Tony’s ass</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vine Wars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoodSourceofFiber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodSourceofFiber/gifts).



> Enjoy my friends.

It all started because Tony suggested that Bucky and Steve were too old to know how to make vines people would watch. In hindsight that probably wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had considering it led to the Avengers teaming up to ruin his life. Okay, so that was a bit melodramatic, but they were still Team Stucky and that just was not right. In the end he did have to admit that they were a little bit ahead of their time, but definitely not as awesome as him. He was clearly the best no matter what anyone else said.  

Steve and Bucky admittedly had no fucking clue what a vine was when they told Tony to stuff it. However once they looked them up and watched two hours’ worth of hilarious six second clips they were confident the could kick Tony’s ass. They also watched all of Tony’s vines to see what they were up against and found that it was a lot of things blowing up. They figured Tony was a one trick pony and that was their first mistake. However in the end neither one of them won the Vine Wars, that prize went to Nat and Thor, who patiently waited until they had something vine worthy to win against Tony’s and Steve’s creative efforts.

*

Tony made the announcement vine on a Wednesday, telling the public it was him versus Steve and Bucky and they had better vote for him. The first vine he uploaded for the competition went up that Friday. Steve and Bucky had expected the same thing they found on Tony’s account, some lame explosion, but they found Tony jumping around in a bouncy castle instead. Pepper was obviously holding the camera while Tony jumped around, “I’m gunna do a backflip!” Tony yells.

The camera shakes as Pepper shifts, “TONY NO!” she yells as Tony flings himself backwards before he was high enough to successfully execute a backflip. He seems to realize his mistake halfway through and starts flailing, the vine ends with Pepper yelling, “Damn it, Tony!” as Tony lands on his head. It was widely popular within seconds.

Steve and Bucky look at each other, “Nat,” they say in sync and set off to complete their own vine. They put up their finished product the day after Tony’s despite being heavily bruised and sufficiently shamed.

*

Tony watches the vine mostly out of curiosity because there was no way the two old geezers managed to make something good. It had a lot of views but that was obviously only because they were Avengers, not because it was good. He’d forgive people for their curiosity. The vine starts with Steve behind the camera filming Bucky sneaking up behind Nat, who was sleeping on the couch, with a small cake in hand. The bruises they had suddenly made sense to Tony. “Do it for the vine!” Steve yells and Bucky smacks the cake over Nat’s face. She was already halfway up by the time the cake connected to her face and instead of going after Bucky she goes for Steve. The vine ends with Steve turning the camera to his face to capture him yelling, “shit!” and running away, Nat on his ass. Tony had to admit he was impressed, mostly because Nat was impossible to sneak up on, not because the vine was actually good.

*

Tony’s retaliation came two days after their first vine so Steve and Bucky sit down to view what Tony put up. The vine starts with a night view of New York that was obviously taken with Tony in his suit flying around, “isn’t it-” his words are cut off by an explosion down below. “Damnit, JARVIS, what was that?” Tony asks the AI.

“It appears to be an attack of Doombots,” the AI informs him.

Tony swears, “Motherfucking Doombots,” he snaps. The vine cuts off as he takes off towards the explosion. This vine was more popular than the first, probably because of the aftermath. Tony managed to hack the Doombots and fry them, which resulted in a lot of prevented property damage.  Apparently saving the subway systems was popular with the public. While Steve and Bucky think up their retaliation Nat posts her own vine.

*

She had planned this for a couple of weeks and Steve had better act how she wanted him to when she gave him his present, he owed her. She has Clint follow her with a camera as she gives Steve the item in question. He stares at in confusion, “what is this?” he asks, staring at the giant ice cube with bottle caps in it on a Popsicle stick.

“It’s a capsicle for the capsicle,” she says gleefully. Clint starts laughing and Steve rolls his eyes fondly, the vine cuts out.

*

Thor, despite finding vines primitive, figures he’d get on board too because Jane seems to enjoy them. He thinks over his options, hoping for something that wasn’t cliché and boring, so no Mjolnir even though he figured he could make some cool vines with that. In the end it was a small child who ended up being the accidental mastermind behind his first vine. Darcy, who seemed to be very fond of her camera phone, had taken to filming him at all times because she found his confusion with Midgardian culture hilarious. He figured he should be happy that she was amused, even if he didn’t understand why Tony thought his tech was so advanced; in Asgard his technology was ancient.

He did, however, very much enjoy coffee, so that’s what he was doing when the small child approached. Darcy, as per usual, was filming when the child yelled his name and ran up to him. He immediately bends to the child’s level and smiles, “hello,” he says and ruffles the child’s hair. The kid looks absolutely dazzled. Thor wasn’t fond of celebrity culture in Midgard but the joy his presence brought to small children was his favourite thing about this place, aside from Jane.

“Here!” the child yells and hands over the pink head band with a bow that had previously been in the child’s hair. The mother makes a face and Thor already knows where this is going. He would never understand Midgard’s obsession with gender.

“Honey, Thor is a boy he doesn’t-” he grabs the head band from the child and places it on his head.

“Thank you,” he says, cutting the mother off, “now I can look beautiful while I defeat my foes,” he smiles wide. The child’s squeal of joy was so worth all the annoying media comments that had come with his wearing a pink head band. Darcy shrieked and immediately agreed to make it a vine. It was more popular than Tony falling on his head in that bouncy castle, yet another thing about Midgard he didn’t understand.

*

Steve and Bucky got a lot of questions about the nature of their relationship and Steve was tired of hearing that there was no way Captain America could be gay from people who weren’t him. Although he and Bucky hadn’t been together before the war it turned out they both had feelings for each other and thought the other one was straight. Apparently they were both bisexual and clueless.  

So far Tony was in the lead in their vine war and they figured they needed something good, something better than Tony being a fool or Tony saving New York. Then Bucky had thought of something, “what if we used a vine to come out?” he says gleefully.

Steve wrinkles his nose, “I don’t know Buck, do you think that’s wise?” He did want to stick it to the media for being so homophobic, but he also wanted to be smart about it.

Bucky grabs his face in his hands and pulls him in close, “ _imagine the Republicans_ ,” he whispers. Steve can see the horror and shock they would get from the homophobes in office now.

“Let’s do it,” he says, grinning.

*

Tony is seriously curious about what Rogers and Barnes did that resulted in Pepper calling him shrieking at the top of her lungs about vines. Pepper was not a screamer; she was more like the deadly calm in the eye of a storm kind of girl. So Tony goes and checks out this vine only to find it has not only made _international news_ , but Putin has _banned_ the damn thing. He gets an idea of what the vine contains and sighs, accepting his fate as the loser of this war when he clicks play on the vine.

Steve is standing in the kitchen in the Tower with a cup of coffee, “I take my coffee the same way I take men and women, hot and ready in the morning!” he says with a freakish amount of cheer. Bucky snickers and leans in, kissing Steve on the lips, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The vine cuts out.

Tony stares at the screen in horror, “you fucks! I cannot lose to you because you decided _now_ was a good time to come out!” he yells at the computer, flailing his arms around. JARVIS takes over the screen and brings him to a new page, one involving himself except he can’t remember doing anything newsworthy for the last couple of weeks.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t give up quite yet,” the AI tells him. He looks over the news page about the Avengers taking on social issues. He frowns and looks over the article, which includes Steve and Bucky’s vine, Thor and that pink head band, Nat punching some guy in the face for saying something insulting about rape victims, and Clint telling people to vaccinate their damn kids. His bit is at the bottom of the article with a video or him at a riot. Right, he remembered that, he had no idea how that police department got their hands on tear gas he hadn’t been making for some time now but he’d been right pissed about it being used on peaceful protesters. Like, they were sick of getting killed for existing while brown, it was well within their rights to be royally pissed off about that.

The video link showed him in the middle of a bunch of protesters, all of which scattered when something came flying their way. Apparently they knew it was tear gas but his dumb ass stood there and caught it instead of dodging. He watches as he looks at the canister and his mouth drops open in shock and anger. He had like ten seconds before that thing went off. “I can’t believe you assholes are using my tech against these people! You can expect a lawsuit in the morning you racist fucks!” he yells and launches the tear gas back at the cops just as it goes off. Well, at least he hadn’t accidentally gassed himself; he didn’t actually remember that because he’d had to keep the cops from arresting Rhodey and various other people the whole night.

The whole police department was fired for that, which kind of pissed him off. “Are you fucking kidding me, JARVIS? All these people have been protesting for weeks about not wanting to die because they had the audacity to not be white and nothing happens. A thirty second clip of me getting pissed off pops up and suddenly the cops are fired? It’d be a victory if it wasn’t for the fact that hundreds of pissed off black people still doesn’t trump the annoyance of one white guy. This is bullshit JARVIS, also call Pepper and ask if she’s gotten that tear gas out of there.” Pepper, thankfully, was already ahead of him and tracked down several pockets of weapons still floating around and recalled them back.

*

Steve was impressed; he didn’t actually know that Tony was involved in any social issues outside of donating to charities. He found out why after the vine JARVIS recorded of Tony ranting about cops getting fired because he was mad versus the people protesting went viral. Tony had told several reporters after that that he didn’t tend to get involved in those things because people had a tendency to focus on him instead of the issue. He now refused to comment because he didn’t want to take away much needed attention to police brutality. “Huh, so he isn’t blind to social issues,” Bucky says, impressed.

“Well, that’s great considering we all thought he was clueless,” Steve agrees. People probably would have thought Tony was vying for attention after his and Bucky’s vine but it was obvious Tony didn’t know JARVIS was going to upload a vine of him yelling about racism. If he was he probably would have fixed his hair and wiped the engine oil off his face. He probably would have worn a different shirt too, or looked at the recording camera. So people were happy with Tony’s involvement in the issue and took every chance to rub the cops’ noses in it. “We still have to beat Tony in this vine war though, so we need a good idea,” Steve says and raises an eyebrow.    

They think for a couple of days about what they wanted to do but all they had was something that centred around humour so maybe all the homophobia around the last vine would be less shitty. In the meantime Tony uploaded another vine of him and Pepper on a rollercoaster falling down a drop, Pepper screaming at the top of her lungs with her hair flapping around while Tony laughs. Another one had been loaded quickly after that that showed a harassed looking Pepper yelling at Tony for lying about how high that drop was. Tony continues laughing until Pepper slaps him in the face. The vine ends with Tony looking at Pepper in wide eyed shock holding his cheek. Bucky winces, “ouch, poor Tony. Pepper has a damn good slap.” He’d feel worse for Tony if Tony hadn’t decided Pepper’s terror was hilarious. The vines were widely popular and they had put Tony back in the lead, barely, but he was still technically winning.

*

Steve’s and Bucky’s next vine placed them in a field with Mjolnir at Steve’s feet and Bucky behind the camera. “Wanna see a neat trick?” Steve says, grinning. He picks up Mjolnir without a problem and throws the hammer. He stares after it until it disappears and frowns when it doesn’t return like it does to Thor. “Bucky, where did Mjolnir-” his words are cut off with an _ooff_ from Bucky, who falls to the ground. The camera falls and lands beside Bucky, showing him trapped under the hammer.

*

Tony was pissed about this development but he wasn’t as upset as Thor, who damn near cried and asked the hammer why. Jane thought this was hilarious and told him it was unsurprising that at least one other member of his team could lift the hammer; they were supposed to be the best of what earth had to offer. Then she picked up the hammer, seemingly without realizing what she was doing, and set it aside. Thor stared for a second and grinned, “You are worthy! How wonderful!” he hugged her tight and Darcy squealed. This was Thor’s second very well received vine. People thought it was adorable that Thor was upset about Steve being worthy but supportive of Jane.

*

Tony had to do something good to make up for Captain Assfuck being able to lift Thor’s stupid biased hammer. In the end he asked Rhodey to do him a favour and test a suit for him. Rhodey, the sorry sucker, agrees to be Tony’s lab rat for the day.

*

Steve and Bucky settle in to watch Tony’s latest vine, it hadn’t quite been popular enough to put him in the lead again but it left them about even. The vine starts with Tony pressing buttons on a StarkPad and pans out to one of his suits flying around, telling the audience that he was controlling it. Steve and Bucky snorted, boring. “Nosedive!” Tony yells and the suit free falls. The camera then cuts to Rhodey, obviously inside the suit, shrieking at the top of his lungs and cursing Tony out. The last couple seconds conclude the vine with Tony saving Rhodey from smashing into the ground with mere millimetres to spare. “Whee!” Tony says cheerfully. Rhodey probably kicked his ass for that.

*

Nat thought out her second vine carefully, she even let Clint pick the kitten out. She has Clint film again while she pads into Steve’s room and presents the kitten to him with a tiny American flag tied around its neck. “Ugh, a kitten?” he says, confused.

“Its name is Freedom,” Nat says gleefully. The camera cuts to the kitten on Bucky’s face, claws extended while Bucky flails and yells about the cat trying to take his eyes out.

“Freedom!” Steve yells as he tries to extract the kitten without sacrificing Bucky’s eyes to do so.

*

She uploads another vine two days later of Steve yelling the kitten’s name every time it got into things, which was a lot, Clint knew how to pick ‘em. It ends with the kitten leaping on a sleeping Bucky’s face and Steve snatching it off just before Bucky smacked it with his metal hand, looking around groggily and confused. “God Damnit, Freedom!” Steve yells. Nat had laughed for a solid twenty minutes at that and the public found it just as amusing as she did.

*

Steve’s and Bucky’s next vine had sent the public into a tizzy all over again, much to Tony’s chagrin.  He clicks on the stupid thing and Bucky’s face fills his screen before the camera turns and pans over _Steve’s naked sleeping body_ before coming back to Bucky, “good morning America,” he says, grinning and still looking adorably sleepy. Technically Steve was face down so all anyone saw was his ass but that was more than enough to have the entirety of America screeching in glee or horror depending on how they felt about bisexual men and nudity. Tony was never going to beat that but he wasn’t known for giving up.

*

Freedom the kitten had lasted less than two weeks in the Tower and served the purpose of amusing Nat when Steve yelled its name. Tony had initially been amused but the cat’s novelty wore off real fucking fast when the cat almost destroyed his lab when it wiggled its tiny body into the small crawl space that contained the control panel for the AvenJet. This was the inspiration for his next vine; the public had seen enough to know the cat was nothing but trouble.

*

Bucky and Steve sit down to watch Tony’s latest vine even though they were still in the lead by a long shot. Tony held the camera away from himself as he handed Freedom the kitten to a random kid, “want Captain America’s cat?” he tells the child, who gleefully takes the cat with an enthusiastic ‘yes!’ Tony laughs and starts walking away quickly as the kid’s dad turns around, presumably to tell Tony that no, the cat was not going home with them.

“Hey, get back here and take the cat back!” the father yells after him. Tony laughs harder and starts running with the camera aimed at his face, in the background the child starts to throw a tantrum. “Nope!” he yells as the vine ends.

*

Steve decided that Bucky’s vine of his ass just could not stand, he was getting revenge. He takes the camera and enters the steamy bathroom containing Bucky in the shower. He pans over Bucky’s body from toe to head like Bucky had done with him and turned the camera to face him, “good night, America,” he says into the camera and runs before Bucky can erase the video. Tony had no choice but to accept defeat after that. Not only had everyone seen Bucky’s ass, which would have made the vine popular enough on its own, but everyone was hilariously enthused with the pink ducky shower cap Bucky wore on his head. Bucky sulked for a few days but eventually accepted that no one was going to stop talking about his ducky shower cap any time soon.

*

Nat and Thor teamed up after Tony’s not so epic failure to win the vine war he started. Their vines were popular enough so they figured they could beat the ‘good morning/ goodnight America’ vines. Tony had accepted that bet with a laugh, saying they’d fail miserably, Clint bet in favour of Nat and Thor, so had Jane. Steve and Bucky decided to stay out of it but doubted they could manage to beat their popularity. Thor thought they underestimated Widow’s humour and his own genius.

*

Their vine starts in a field with Mjolnir at Nat’s feet, Thor standing beside her, and Darcy behind the camera. “Are you ready to be worthy, Widow?” Thor asks. Nat sighs and looks at the hammer before wincing and picking Mjolnir up with no resistance.

She stares at it for a second before lifting it high, “EEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH,” she lets out, sounding like a pterodactyl as the clouds and thunder roll in heavily.

Thor snatches the hammer, “no Mjolnir for you,” he says and the storm recedes. Nat looks upset.

*

Needless to say they beat Steve and Bucky and started a huge trend of people screaming like pterodactyls as well as the hashtag #WidowIsWorthy. They also inspired several dozen fan fictions and a novel.

*

Nat took to making vines with Mjolnir because it annoyed Thor, but mostly because it irritated the hell out of Tony. Her most popular vine was of her throwing the hammer in the Tower, only she over shot and it went straight through a wall. Tony, who was showering on the other side or the damaged wall, screamed and did his best to cover up and not cut his feet on the mess. The vine cuts out as the hammer comes back and knocks Tony on his ass; Nat catches it and laughs hysterically. Part of the vine’s popularity could be attributed to the pink ducky shower cap Tony was wearing but Nat preferred to take all the credit.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
